Lloyds recently commissioned a report to analyze the factors that could prompt civil unrest around the world to spread.

The resulting report entitled Political violence contagion: A framework for understanding the emergence and spread of civil unrest, looked at the contagion effect of events such as the Arab Spring.

The report states, “Instances of political violence contagion are becoming more frequent and the contagion effect ever more rapid and powerful,” adding that “the interdependencies which create the conditions for political violence pandemics are liable to become an increasingly important factor in determining international stability.”

Outbreaks of civil unrest spreading across international borders are poorly understood but highly important dimension of political risk.

The report looked at political violence in “three overarching super strain pandemic categories of conflict types” with a) including anti-imperialist, independence movements, removing occupying force, b) including mass pro-reform protests against national government and c) including armed insurrection, insurgency, secessionist, may involve ideology (Marxism, Islamism).

It also ‘concluded’ that “[g]iven identical risk factors, it was found that an increase in the share of internet users is strongly associated with an increased risk of pandemic”.